He answered immediately,
"Jonathan Pym." "If you think him so good you might say Mr. Pym." "When
a man is the best in any way he's too big for Mr.," said the man
readily.
"I dare say," I remarked, "that this Jonathan Pym is very
little better than the rest." "But I say he is," retorted the man
fiercely. "Where inside of the four seas of Ireland will you get his
aiquil? He bought the land, coming among us a stranger, and he did not
raise the rents. The people live under the rents their fathers paid."
"Well, that's not much?" "If you were a tenant you would think
differently. He took off the thatch of the cabins and put on slates at
his own expense: There is not a broken roof on the land that he owns.
Every tenant he has owns a decent house, with byre and barn, shed and
stable, and he done it all out of the money he had, that never was
lifted out of the land, and after all left them in at the ould rents.
There has never been wan eviction on his place yet." "Has he been shot
at yet?" I enquired innocently. "Arrah, what would he be shot for?"
demanded the man, turning his swarthy face and black eyes full on me. "I
thought maybe some one might shoot him for fun," I explained, feebly.
"Fun!" growled the car-man, "quare fun! If a man is shot or shot at he
deserves it richly. He's not a rale gentleman, word and deed, like
Jonathan Pym."
The driver continued to praise the wonderful landlord, Jonathan Pym, in
a growling kind of tone as if, were I his spouse, he would thwack me
well to cure my unbelief, as we jolted over the stones to the ruins of
the monastery of owls.
There is a lake, the lake of owls, near this ruin, and in it, it is
said, gentlemen anglers can readily obtain leave to fish. I have heard
that amateur anglers give the fish they catch to the person who gives
the permit, retaining the sport of catching as their share; or if they
want the fish paying for them at market price. I think this unlikely,
but it may be so nevertheless.
The monastery was once a splendid place, to judge by the remains of the
carving on window and arched door. One of the skulls of Grace O'Malley
used to be kept here as a precious relic. There was another at Clare
Island and I think I also heard of another. It seems some speculative
and sacrilegious Scotchman brought a ship round the west coast of
Ireland to gather up the bones lying in the abbeys to crush them for
manure, and they took the brave sea queen's bones and skull with the
rest.
Returned to Newport in a very undecided frame of mind whether to go to
Ballycroy or not.
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